The present invention relates to a portable electronic entity capable of receiving a broadcast multimedia data stream.
It finds one application in the reception of a broadcast multimedia data stream, including the reception of terrestrial digital television, and in particular reception of pay channels necessitating either a subscription or a payment before viewing.
One example of a portable electronic entity is an electronic key or “dongle”, which generally comprises an interface enabling it to be connected to a host terminal, which can be a workstation, a computer, a mobile telephone, a personal assistant, a digital television, an MP3 player, etc. It can be a card with a secure microcontroller conforming to the ISO 7816 standard or a microcircuit card conforming to the MMC (MultiMedia Memory Cards) specification, a mobile telephone, or a PDA. The interface of the electronic key usually conforms to the USB (Universal Serial Bus) standard, which defines a universal serial bus system developed to provide simple and fast management of exchanges of data between a host terminal and a peripheral device, for example a portable electronic entity, a keyboard or other electronic device. The interface of the electronic key can also conform to other standards such as the ISO 7816 standard, the PCMCIA (Personal Computer Memory Card International Association) standard or the MMC standard. The portable electronic entity can also comprise a contactless interface, in particular an interface conforming to the WiFi or Bluetooth standard.
The multimedia data stream includes in particular multimedia data and/or program data. In the case of multimedia data, an audio and/or visual application is required for viewing or listening to the data. In the case of program data, means for executing the data are used. The data is in particular in digital form, for example to the MPEG format, or of DVB (Digital Video Broadcasting) type.
There is known from the document EP 1 633 133, entitled “Portable apparatus for enabling reproduction of television”, a USB key including means for receiving a broadcast data stream and means for connection to a host terminal to send the host terminal data obtained from the received data stream. The USB key described in the above document can also include means for recoding and compressing data.
However, this device as described does not make the reproduction of the received data secure.
Indeed, this device does not provide a totally satisfactory degree of security in that neither the host terminal nor the electronic entity are in fact secure. As a result of this a malicious person can obtain data from the stream and use it without having acquired the rights associated with that data.
It is necessary, in particular where pay channels are concerned, that only users who have acquired an authorization, also known as a licence, are in a position to receive the data.